In early October 1676, Hetman Jan Sobieski was stationed in Krasnystaw. On 5 October after finding out that several Tatar units were plundering the area of Zamosc, he decided to destroy them. The main Tatar forces camped near Krasnobrod, and in the night of October 5/6, Sobieski began a 52-kilometer march, which took place in a heavy rain. Early in the morning, Tatar camp was attacked by pro-Polish Cossacks, loyal to Mykhailo Khanenko. When news of the skirmish reached Sobieski, he decided to intervene, arriving at the site of the battle after 30 minutes. Polish forces joined the fighting, while Khanenko himself left Krasnobrod and headed to Zamosc. Several Tatar units were destroyed, and some 2,500 Polish civilians were captured by the invaders.

1.
John III Sobieski
–
John III Sobieski, from 1674 until his death King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was one of the most notable monarchs of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sobieskis military skill, demonstrated in wars against the Ottoman Empire, sobieskis 22-year reign marked a period of the Commonwealths stabilization, much needed after the turmoil of the Deluge and the Khmelnytsky Uprising. Popular among his subjects, he was a military commander. After his victories over them, the Ottomans called him the Lion of Lechistan, official title, Jan III, z łaski bożej, król Polski, wielki książę litewski, ruski, pruski, mazowiecki, żmudzki, kijowski, wołyński, podlaski i czernichowski, etc. His father, Jakub Sobieski, was the Voivode of Ruthenia and Castellan of Kraków, his mother, John Sobieski spent his childhood in Żółkiew. After graduating from the Nowodworski College in Kraków in 1643, young John Sobieski then graduated from the faculty of the Jagiellonian University in 1646. After finishing his studies, together with his brother Marek Sobieski, John left for western Europe and they visited Leipzig, Antwerp, Paris, London, Leiden and The Hague. Both brothers returned to the Commonwealth in 1648, upon receiving the news of the death of king Władysław IV Vasa and the hostilities of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, they volunteered for the army. They both fought in the siege of Zamość and they founded and commanded their own banners of cavalry. Soon, the fortunes of war separated the brothers, in 1649, Jakub fought in the Battle of Zboriv. In 1652, Marek died in Tatar captivity after his capture at the Battle of Batih, John was promoted to the rank of pułkownik and fought with distinction in the Battle of Berestechko. A promising commander, John was sent by King John II Casimir to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire as one of the envoys in a mission of Mikołaj Bieganowski. There, Sobieski learned the Tatar language and the Turkish language and studied Turkish military traditions and it is likely he participated as part of the briefly allied Polish-Tatar forces in the 1655 Battle of Okhmativ. By 26 May 1656 he received the position of the chorąży koronny, during the three-day-long battle of Warsaw of 1656, Sobieski commanded a 2, 000-man strong regiment of Tatar cavalry. He took part in a number of engagements over the two years, including in the Siege of Toruń in 1658. In 1659 he was elected a deputy to Sejm, and was one of the Polish negotiators in the Treaty of Hadiach with the Cossacks. In 1660 he took part in the last offensive against the Swedes in Prussia, through personal connections, he became a strong supporter of the French faction in the Polish royal court, represented by Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga. In 1662 he was elected a deputy to the Sejm

2.
Hetman
–
Hetman is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders. For much of the history of the Principality of Moldavia, the Hetman was the second in rank in the army after the ruling prince, the Hetman was also the highest military officer in Ukraines Hetmanates, the Zaporizhian Host and the Ukrainian State. The title was used by Ukraines Cossacks from the 16th century, hejtman is today the term for the elected governor of a Czech region. One theory derives the word from the Early Modern High German Heubtmann, with Heubt meaning head, hauptmann was a common military title during medieval times, literally meaning captain but functionally corresponding rather to todays general. Moreover, it has suggested that the Czech language may have served as an intermediary. The first Polish title of Grand Crown Hetman dates from 1505, the title of Hetman was given to the leader of the Polish Army and until 1581 the Hetman position existed only during specific campaigns and wars. After that, it became a permanent title, as were all the titles in the Kingdom of Poland, at any given time the Commonwealth had four Hetmans – a Great and Field Hetman for each of both Poland and Lithuania. Hetmans were not paid for their job by the Royal Treasury, Hetmans were the main commanders of the military forces, second only to the monarch in the armys chain of command. The fact that they could not be removed by the monarch made them very independent and this system worked well when a Hetman had great ability and the monarch was weak, but sometimes produced disastrous results in the opposite case. The contrast with states bordering the Commonwealth, where sovereigns could dismiss their army-commanders at any time, was immense, in 1648 the Zaporizhian Host elected a Hetman of their own igniting the Ukrainian struggle for independence. The military reform of 1776 limited the powers of the Hetmans, the Hetman office was abolished after the third partition of Poland in 1795. At the end of the century, the commanders of the Zaporizhian Cossacks were called Koshovyi Otaman or Hetmans. In 1572, the hetman was a commander of the Registered Cossack Army of the Rzeczpospolita too, from 1648, the start of Bohdan Khmelnytskys uprising, a hetman was the head of the whole Ukrainian State — Hetmanshchyna. Although they were elected, Ukrainian Hetmans had very broad powers and acted as heads of the Cossack state, their military commanders. After the split of Ukraine along the Dnieper River by the 1667 Polish-Russian Treaty of Andrusovo, Ukrainian Cossacks became known as Left-bank Cossacks, in the Russian Empire, the office of Cossack Hetman was abolished by Catherine II of Russia in 1764. The last Hetman of the Zaporozhian Army was Kyrylo Rozumovsky, who reigned from 1751 until 1764, the title was revived in Ukraine during the revolution of 1917 to 1920. This regime lasted until late 1918, when it was overthrown by a new Directory of the re-established Ukrainian Peoples Republic, ataman Bulawa Hatman Hetmans sign Media related to Hetmans at Wikimedia Commons Hetman

3.
Ottoman Empire
–
After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe

4.
Battle of Kosovo
–
The army under Prince Lazar consisted of his own troops, a contingent led by Serbian nobleman Vuk Branković, and a contingent sent from Bosnia by King Tvrtko I, commanded by Vlatko Vuković. The battle was fought on the Kosovo Field, in the territory ruled by Branković and its site is about 5 kilometers northwest of the modern city of Prishtina. Reliable historical accounts of the battle are scarce, the bulk of both armies were wiped out in the battle, both Lazar and Murad lost their lives in it. Although Ottomans managed to annihilate the Serbian army, they suffered high casualties which delayed their progress. The Serbs were left too few men to effectively defend their lands. Consequently, one after the other, the Serbian principalities that were not already Ottoman vassals became so in the following years. Prince Lazar, ruler of the part of the former empire, aware of the Ottoman threat, began diplomatic. After the defeat of the Ottomans at Pločnik and Bileća, Murad I, from there, the party traveled across Velbužd and Kratovo. Though longer than the route through Sofia and the Nišava Valley. From Kosovo, Murads party could attack the lands of either Prince Lazar or Vuk Branković, having stayed in Kratovo for a time, Murad and his troops marched through Kumanovo, Preševo and Gjilan to Pristina, where he arrived on June 14. While there is information about Lazars preparations, he gathered his troops near Niš. His party likely remained there until he learned that Murad had moved to Velbužd and this was the best place Lazar could choose as a battlefield, as it gave him control of all the routes that Murad could take. Reliable historical accounts of the battle are scarce, however, a comparison with historically contemporaneous battles enables reliable reconstruction. Murads army numbered from 27,000 to 40,000 fighters. These 40,000 included no more than 2,000 Janissaries,2,500 of Murads cavalry guard,6,000 sipahis,20,000 azaps and akincis, marko and Dragaš, although Ottoman vassals, did not participate in the battle. The Ottoman army was supported by the forces of the Anatolian Turkoman Beylik of Isfendiyar, Lazars army numbered from 12,000 to 30,000. Also present were Knights Hospitaller led by the Croatian knight John of Palisna, the armies met at the Kosovo Field. Murad headed the Ottoman army, with his sons Bayezid on his right, one of the Ottoman commanders was Pasha Yiğit Bey

5.
Battle of Varna
–
The Battle of Varna took place on 10 November 1444 near Varna in eastern Bulgaria. The Ottoman Army under Sultan Murad II defeated the Hungarian-Polish and Wallachian armies commanded by Władysław III of Poland, John Hunyadi and it was the final battle of the Crusade of Varna. Đurađ Branković contributed to Ottoman victory by giving the Sultan information on the Christian advance, the Hungarian Kingdom fell into crisis after the death of King Sigismund in 1437. His son-in-law and successor, King Albert, ruled for two years and died in 1439, leaving his widow Elizabeth with an unborn child, Ladislaus the Posthumous. The Hungarian noblemen then called the young King Władysław III of Poland to the throne of Hungary, after his Hungarian coronation, he never went back to his homeland again, assuming rule of the Hungarian Kingdom next to the influential nobleman John Hunyadi. After failed expeditions in 1440–42 against Belgrade and Transylvania, and the defeats of the campaign of Hunyadi in 1442–43. After he had made peace with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia in August 1444, on receipt of this news, Mehmet II understood that he was too young and inexperienced to successfully fight the coalition. He recalled Murad II to the throne to lead the army into battle, angry at his father, who had long since retired to a contemplative life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed II wrote, If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and it was only after receiving this letter that Murad II agreed to lead the Ottoman army. The Hungarian advance was rapid, Ottoman fortresses were bypassed, while local Bulgarians from Vidin, Oryahovo, on October 10 near Nicopolis, some 7,000 Wallachian cavalrymen under Mircea II, one of Vlad Draculs sons, also joined. Late on November 9, a large Ottoman army of around 50,000 men approached Varna from the west, at a supreme military council called by Hunyadi during the night, the Papal legate, cardinal Julian Cesarini, insisted on a quick withdrawal. However, the Christians were caught between the Black Sea, Lake Varna, the wooded slopes of the Franga plateau. Cesarini then proposed a defense using the Wagenburg of the Hussites until the arrival of the Christian fleet, the Hungarian magnates and the Croatian and Czech commanders backed him, but the young Władysław and Hunyadi rejected the defensive tactics. Hunyadi declared, To escape is impossible, to surrender is unthinkable, let us fight with bravery and honor our arms. Władysław accepted this position and gave him the command, andreas del Palatio states that Hunyadi commanded the Wallachian army indicating a large Romanian component in Hunyadis personal army. In the morning of November 10, Hunyadi deployed the army of some 20,000 –30,000 crusaders as an arc between Lake Varna and the Franga plateau, the line was about 3.5 km long. Two banners with a total of 3,500 men from the kings Polish and Hungarian bodyguards, Hungarian royal mercenaries, the Wallachian cavalry was left in reserve behind the center. The right flank that lined up the hill towards the village of Kamenar numbered 6,500 men in 5 banners, Bishop Jan Dominek of Varadin with his personal banner led the force, Cesarini commanded a banner of German mercenaries and a Bosnian one

6.
Fall of Constantinople
–
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by the then 21-year-old Mehmed the Conqueror, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople followed a 53-day siege that had begun on 6 April 1453, the capture of Constantinople marked the end of the Roman Empire, an imperial state that had lasted for nearly 1,500 years. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople also dealt a blow to Christendom. After the conquest, Sultan Mehmed II transferred the capital of the Ottoman Empire from Edirne to Constantinople. The conquest of the city of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire was a key event in the Late Middle Ages, which also marks, for some historians, Constantinople had been an imperial capital since its consecration in 330 under Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great. In the following centuries, the city had been besieged many times but was captured only once. The crusaders established an unstable Latin state in and around Constantinople while the remaining empire splintered into a number of Byzantine successor states, notably Nicaea, Epirus and they fought as allies against the Latin establishments, but also fought among themselves for the Byzantine throne. The Nicaeans eventually reconquered Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, thereafter there was little peace for the much-weakened empire as it fended off successive attacks by the Latins, the Serbians, the Bulgarians, and, most importantly, the Ottoman Turks. The Black Plague between 1346 and 1349 killed almost half of the inhabitants of Constantinople, the Empire of Trebizond, an independent successor state that formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, also survived on the coast of the Black Sea. This optimism was reinforced by friendly assurances made by Mehmed to envoys sent to his new court, but Mehmeds actions spoke far louder than his mild words. Since the mutual excommunications of 1054, the Pope in Rome was committed to establishing authority over the eastern church, nominal union had been negotiated in 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, and indeed, some Palaiologoi emperors had since been received into the Latin church. Emperor John VIII Palaiologos had also recently negotiated union with Pope Eugene IV, finally, the attempted Union failed, greatly annoying Pope Nicholas V and the hierarchy of the Roman church. Although some troops did arrive from the city states in the north of Italy. Some Western individuals, however, came to defend the city on their own account. One of these was a soldier from Genoa, Giovanni Giustiniani. A specialist in defending walled cities, he was given the overall command of the defense of the land walls by the emperor. In Venice, meanwhile, deliberations were taking place concerning the kind of assistance the Republic would lend to Constantinople

7.
Battle of Vaslui
–
The Battle of Vaslui was fought on 10 January 1475, between Stephen III of Moldavia and the Ottoman governor of Rumelia, Hadım Suleiman Pasha. The battle took place at Podul Înalt, near the town of Vaslui, the Ottoman troops numbered up to 120,000, facing about 40,000 Moldavian troops, plus smaller numbers of allied and mercenary troops. Mara Brankovic, the younger wife of Murad II, told a Venetian envoy that the invasion had been worst ever defeat for the Ottomans. Stephen was later awarded the title Athleta Christi by Pope Sixtus IV, the conflict between Stephen and Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II worsened when both laid their claims to the historical region of Bessarabia, now known under the name of Budjak. The region had belonged to Wallachia, but later succumbed to Moldavian influence under Petru I of Moldavia and was annexed to Moldavia in the late 14th century by Roman I of Moldavia. Under Alexandru cel Bun, it had become an part of Moldavia and was successfully defended in 1420 against the first Ottoman attempt to capture castle Chilia. The ports of Chilia and Akkerman were essential for Moldavian commerce, the old trade route from Caffa, Akkerman, and Chilia passed through Suceava in Moldavia and Lwow in Poland. This is confirmed by a German chronicle which explains that Mehmet wanted to turn Moldavia into some kind of fortress, the Ottomans also feared the strategic position of Moldavia, from whence it would only take 15 to 20 days to reach Constantinople. In 1448, Petru II of Moldavia awarded Chilia to John Hunyadi, the governor of Transylvania, and in effect, it gave Hungary control of the strategic area on the Danube, with access to the Black Sea. With the assassination of Bogdan II of Moldavia in 1451 by his brother Petru Aron, bogdans son, Stephen, fled Moldavia together with his cousin, Vlad Dracula — who had sought protection at the Moldavian court – to Transylvania, at the court of Hunyadi. Even though Hungary had made peace with the Turks in 1451, with both Wallachia and Moldavia conducting a pro-Ottoman policy, the plan to install Vlad Țepeș as prince of Wallachia began to take shape. In April 1457, Vlad Țepeș supported Stephen with 6,000 horsemen, the new prince continued sending the tribute that his uncle and Mehmed had agreed upon, and in such way, avoided any premature confrontation with his enemy. His first priority was to strengthen the country and to retrieve its lost territory, because Aron resided in Poland, Stephen made a few incursions in southern Poland. It was also in the interest of Poland to have the area belonging to Moldavia, later that year, it is believed that Stephen asked Vlad to return Chilia back to Moldavia – a demand which was most likely refused. On 22 June, when Vlad was fighting Mehmed, Stephen allied himself with the Sultan and with some Turkish assistance, the fortress, defended by tall stone walls and 12 cannons, was in the middle of the 15th century the strongest fortification located in the Danube area. The Wallachians rushed to the scene with 7,000 men, and together with the Hungarian garrison battled the Moldavians and they managed to defend the town, while wounding Stephen in his foot with a shrapnel. This they did, and Stephen entered the fortress where he found its two captains, rather tipsy, for they have been to a wedding. Mehmed was furious about the news and claimed Chilia for being a part of Wallachia – which now was a vassal to the Porte – and demanded Stephen to give it over to him

8.
Siege of Shkodra
–
The Siege of Shkodra of 1478-79 was a confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the Albanians and Venetians at Shkodra and its Rozafa Castle during the First Ottoman-Venetian War. Ottoman historian Franz Babinger called the siege “one of the most remarkable episodes in the struggle between the West and the Crescent, the campaign was so important to Mehmed II “the Conqueror” that he came personally to ensure triumph. After nineteen days of bombarding the walls, the Ottomans launched five successive general attacks which all ended in victory for the besieged. On January 25,1479, Venice and Constantinople signed an agreement that ceded Shkodra to the Ottoman Empire. The defenders of the citadel emigrated to Venice, whereas many Albanians from the region retreated into the mountains, Shkodra then became a seat of the newly established Ottoman sanjak, the Sanjak of Scutari. The Ottomans held the city until Montenegro captured it in April 1913, Shkodra, also known as Shkodër, Skadar, and Scutari, was both a strategic town and an important region of Albania Veneta. After being held by the Balšić noble family since 1355, Shkodra was taken by the Ottomans in 1393, retaken by Đurađ II Balšić in 1395, then ceded to the Republic of Venice in 1396. Sultan Mehmed II had already conquered Constantinople in 1453, but now desired to dominate the Albanian coastline and be better poised to cross the Adriatic, scanderbeg died in 1468, nevertheless, Kruja and some northern Albanian garrisons were still holding with Venetian support. The Venetians and the Ottoman Empire had been at war since 1463, the Ottoman Empire seeking expansion, Venice held and was arming a number of Albanian towns, including Shkodra, which it had taken in 1396 and renamed Scutari. By 1466 Venice considered Shkodra the heart and capital of Albania Veneta, Shkodra was so important to the Empire’s aims that, shortly after the siege, Ottoman chronicler Ashik Pashazade called it the hope of passage to the lands of Italy. The Ottomans attempted to take Shkodra in the siege of 1474, sultan Mehmed IIs commander Suleiman Pasha failed, therefore the Ottomans retreated and the sultan planned a more powerful offensive. Count Carlo da Braccio repulsed the invaders, but before returning to Bosnia, despite these losses, Venice refused to yield to Mehmed IIs demands to surrender Shkodra, being its last bastion in the East. In 1477 the Ottomans captured most of the territory of Zeta together with Žabljak. Crnojević soon recovered Žabljak but held it briefly while the Ottomans concentrated on their attack on Shkodra. Among the population of Shkodra there were people who were suspected to be connected to the Ottomans, the Republic of Venice was intent on defending Shkodra. In late 1477, as the new Ottoman threat grew imminent, therefore the Venetian Senate finally approved the locals requests for arms and gave permission for the recruitment of warriors from the surrounding villages. The city of Shkodra would be defended by its walls and a mixed garrison of locals. In the spring of 1478, Mehmed II dispatched both the beylerbey of Rumelia, Koca Davud Pasha, and the new beylerbey of Anatolia, Mustafa Bey, to Shkodra with the armies under their control

9.
Battle of Diu (1509)
–
It marks the beginning of European colonialism in Asia. Since Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498, the Portuguese had been fighting Calicut while allying with its local rival Kingdom of Cochin, where they established their headquarters. In 1505, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent his first viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida with twenty one vessels to strengthen the fledgling Portuguese empire in East Africa, sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat allied with the Kozhikkodu Samutiri when Portugal threatened his field. He then asked his partners, the Mamluks, for help. In 1507, Portuguese forces under command of Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered Socotra, at the mouth of the Red Sea and, for a short time, Ormuz in the Persian Gulf. The Mamluks and their European trade partners, the Venetians, had become wealthy from monopolising the flow of spices from India to Europe. Venice broke diplomatic relations with Portugal and started to look for ways to counter its intervention in the Indian Ocean, venice negotiated for Egyptian tariffs to be lowered to facilitate competition with the Portuguese, and suggested that rapid and secret remedies be taken against the Portuguese. The sovereign of Calicut, the Zamorin, had sent an ambassador asking for help against the Portuguese. These vessels, which Venetian shipwrights helped disassemble in Alexandria and reassemble on the Red Sea coast, had to brave the Indian Ocean, the galley warriors could mount light guns fore and aft, but not along the gunwales because these cannon would interfere with the rowers. The native ships, with their sewn wood planks, could carry no heavy guns at all, hence, most of the coalitions artillery was archers, whom the Portuguese could easily outshoot. The Mamluk-Ottoman fleet, called by the Portuguese by the generic term, joined by Gujarat admiral Malik Ayyaz, governor of Diu, they fought for over three days and won the Battle of Chaul. The Mamluk fleet isolated Lourenço de Almeidas ship, but let the others escape and they killed the Portuguese commander and took nine captives back to Diu. The Mirat Sikandari, a Persian account of the Kingdom of Gujarat, having taken the prisoners, they headed to Diu. Enraged at the death of his son, the Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida sought revenge, Diu was a critical outpost in the overall spice trade from India. The Portuguese attempt to trade with India would require the breaking of this strongly defended. In addition to enforcing Portuguese rule, the battle was undertaken as an issue by Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida to avenge the death of his son Lourenço at the hands of the Mirocem. He was so enraged at his sons death that he is supposed to have said, He who ate the chick must also eat the rooster, or pay for it. Francisco de Almeida had rushed to chase the Mamluks fleet because Afonso de Albuquerque arrived on 6 December 1508 with orders from the King of Portugal to replace him as the next viceroy

Portuguese nau. With fore and aft castles integrated in the hull and a deeper draught meant to withstand long trans-oceanic voyages, Portuguese carracks were some of the most seaworthy ships of their time.